A mere four months after starting operations, Downtown Line 2 experienced its first serious disruption yesterday morning. For about half an hour, train services between Bukit Panjang and Sixth Avenue stations came to a halt due to a train fault at the Beauty World station.
But don’t go blaming SMRT just yet — they operate the North South Line, East West Line and Circle Line. It’s SBS Transit who operate the Downtown Line, as well as the North East Line.
According to TODAY‘s report on a statement by SBS Transit, the train’s emergency brakes were applied but could not be reset, stopping it from leaving the station. Engineers worked to remove the faulty train to allow service to resume, while free bus rides were made available at affected stations that experienced delays of up to ten minutes.
Seen in the grand scheme of things, alongside the recent power trip disruptions on SMRT trains, this doesn’t seem so bad. But if you think about the fact that the Downtown Line 2 only began operations four months ago, well, it’s not a good start.
